Nearly Almost Close Enough
by Chelle-sama
Summary: The true meaning of hopelessly in love. SonomiFujitaka


**Disclaimer:** Once again, I am not CLAMP. That means I don't own CCS, its characters, its town, or its plot (some of which I could have done without.) Kindly resist suing me.

**Dedication:** Circe, of course. Nobody else discusses Sonomi and Fujitaka with me.

**Notes:** I want everyone to be happy and in love. The problem is this: Sonomi is happy. She doesn't need to be _in_ love to be truly happy. She's exactly the kind of role-model I needed when I was eighteen; independent, strong, focused, and loving without _needing_ to have a romantic relationship. And Fujitaka...well, he's had all the luck, ne? It's time one of the Kinomoto's fell hopelessly - in its true meaning – in love.

Nearly Almost Close Enough

Fujitaka watched her walk to the window and stare out at the lights of Tokyo spread below them like the stars above them. A romantic view, maybe. Or practical, depending on what you were looking for. She didn't speak, so he tried again.

"I love you."

"I'm aware of that." She touched the glass in front of her. Sighed. "I'm thinking."

"If you don't know what to say, Sonomi, you don't…"

"I do. Know what to say, I mean." She looked sidelong at him for a moment before returning to her earlier contemplation. "Why did you tell me?"

He blinked. Wasn't that obvious? "Because it's how I feel about you. You should know."

"But why did you _tell_ me?" She turned completely to face him. "I already knew, Kinomoto-sensei. I've known almost as long as you have. So why tell me now?"

Well, he reminded himself, no one had ever accused her of being oblivious to what went on around her, and she wasn't one to tip her hand before she had to. He ignored his surprise and focused on her question. She didn't usually ask questions that she didn't _need_ the answers to. She liked to figure things out on her own.

"Our relationship can't change if we aren't honest with each other about our feelings."

She nodded thoughtfully and turned back to the window. "Honesty is the best policy." She was quiet for another moment, and when she spoke it was softly. "You really were suited to Nadeshiko. She always thought that the truth was best, without thinking of the consequences. Of course," Sonomi smiled, "I wasn't a very good influence. I spent most of my time between the ages of seven and eighteen grounded for telling Mother and Father exactly what I thought, the moment I thought it. Then, naturally, I'd get grounded again for sneaking out. I think I'm still grounded, actually."

"Are you trying to say that I should have lied to you?" He stepped forward, touching her shoulder slightly, turning her around again. The story was cute, very Sonomi, but he wasn't going to be distracted.

"No."

"Myself, then."

"Not that, either." She met his eyes, sighing again. He thought he'd never heard her sigh so often before. "I'm trying to tell you that things might have been better off if you'd kept the truth to yourself."

"You said you already knew how I felt about you, Sonomi. So what's wrong with saying it? If you don't feel the same way…" he trailed off, uncertain. He didn't really know what he'd do, aside from love her anyway. She turned away again, tracing Cassiopeia against the glass. 

"You weren't expecting me to leap into your arms, shouting to the heavens that I love you, too. Why confess?"

"Because…because it's…. I can't explain a feeling." Frustrated, he watched them both reflected in the glass. Sonomi was looking past their reflections, past the moon and the stars and the darkness that held them in place, if that was possible. "This could be simple, Sonomi. Just tell me how you feel." He rested his hands on her shoulders, forward though it was. They looked so good together, couldn't she see it?

"It was simple. Words make things real, and real things aren't simple at all. I can tell you why, but I wanted to know if you knew. You told me because you want me to do something. You want me to know why you're going to be acting like a lover towards me. You told me because you," she met his eyes in the glass, the helplessness clear in her eyes and voice, "you're holding all the hope in the world without knowing that it's sharp on both ends." She stepped out from beneath his hands, turning to face him. "You confessed to me, now, because you want to believe that you don't know what my answer is going to be."

"You don't love me." He stated, feeling cold inside.

"I do. I love you very much. You're the man Nadeshiko loved, loved even more than her family if you look at it the way we did back then. You're the father of little Touya-chan who liked to lick the pictures in my chemistry book and made me want to own a toy company, of all things. You're the father of Sakura-chan, who was my Tomoyo's first real friend, and who healed the rift in our family just by being her happy self. You're an excellent teacher and scholar because you have real passion for the work you do, it changes people and everyone who gets within a meter of you can feel it. And you're my friend. One of the few people who will irritate or embarrass me just because they can, knowing full well that I'd never have anyone's life ruined by morning because of it, even though I could. You're a good man, Kinomoto-sensei. But yes, I'm not _in_ love with you."

"That's not as bad or as complicated as you think, Sonomi. If you do love me, it's not such a far step to being in love with me." He stepped towards her again, happy and desperate because she was shaking her head no, no, no. "You need some time; I'm not going to rush you."

"Then don't do this. You're already rushing, assuming that you can change how I feel."

"No. Only you can change how you feel, Sonomi. Just trust me not to hurt you. I said I won't rush you, and I won't. You've got all the time you need. When you feel comfortable about it, about me, then we'll take the next step."

"I don't need time."

"Then _what_, Sonomi? What _do_ you need? I don't know what happened to scare you away from love this way, but I'm not going to put you through it again. You know I'd never hurt you." He raked his hand through his hair, bewildered and worried and exasperated. She had a tendency to do that to him.

"It's not that I'm afraid of the love you're offering me, Kinomoto-sensei. I initiated my divorce. Keiji didn't contest it. We did it because we loved each other, and Tomoyo, too much to let our lives tear that love to pieces. I'm not afraid of love like that. It's the only kind I want: something so deep that it just about kills you to do whatever it takes to keep it alive. What I am afraid of is what your desire to pursue that kind of love with me will cost us."

"Nothing!" He wanted to pull her close, hold her until she could see what he did. He wouldn't, though, and not just because she wouldn't let him. But it was all so clear to him. "The kids all care about each other; Touya-kun likes and respects you, and I think it's safe to say that Tomoyo-san feels the same towards me. Grandfather wouldn't disown you and neither would your parents. They'd know better this time around. You know about the Sakura cards; Tomoyo-san says you probably knew about the Clow book before Christmas that first year. And all that's past now anyway. Sonomi, I love you. You care about me. Where's the harm in trying to be happy together?"

"Everywhere, if it didn't work out. I'm not willing to risk hurting Tomoyo like that."

"It would work out. We could make it work. You know we could. What's holding you back, Sonomi?" 

"Yes, we could. It'd be pretty easy, if you think about it. I'm gone a lot of the time, and you're even more of a workaholic than I am. We can't get on each others nerves if we barely see each other."

"It wouldn't be like that."

"Maybe not." She agreed. "Probably not." She rubbed her hands over her face, looking tired and unhappy. "I like you. Beyond loving you, I like you an awful lot, Sensei. You're funny and kind and thoughtful and playful and a whole lot of other things that I like in a person. I'm not sure what it is you see in me, but I'm sure you love whatever it is. Do you see the difference?"

"Sonomi, if we just tried…"

"I could marry you tomorrow, if I thought trying was what we deserved. It…"

"We don't even deserve a chance? I don't think that's a decision just one person can make. Don't I get a say in what we deserve?"

"Don't make this harder than it has to be." She shook her head, short red hair swinging before settling back out of her eyes as she looked up at him. "I said that I could marry you tomorrow, and that wouldn't be the hard part. The wedding wouldn't be the hard part. The marriage wouldn't be the hard part. Blending households and having a dozen more kids and putting everyone through college and graduate school and medical school and having them all be world-famous surgeons wouldn't be the hard part. The hard part would be knowing that, for you, our life together would be heaven." She reached up and stroked his cheek. "And for me, it would be…just…pleasant. I don't want to settle for that." 

She took her hand away, but remained with her head tilted towards his. It would have been easy to kiss her. "Today, tomorrow, I wouldn't be able to give you the kind of love that makes a marriage real. You deserve someone who loves you the same way you love them. And I'm not her. I love you, but I can only love you in my way, not anyone else's. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't do it."

"I don't…" He let her silence him with a finger to his lips, gentle as the kiss he wanted.

"Maybe I'm being unfair to you and the kids, but I just can't say, 'Well, Sonomi, you could do worse. Falling like a ton of bricks into love isn't all it's cracked up to be, right? Romance and comfort can take the place of passion and you won't miss it at all.' That isn't fair to me. There isn't any middle ground, and I can't make anyone else happy if I'm not."

He gently pulled her hand away, tucking her fingers into a loose fist held in his hand. "You _could_ fall in love with me, though. That's the…that's the point in telling you that I love you. So you'd know. Get used to the idea, get to like it, and _want_ to let yourself fall. It's still falling, whether or not you were expecting it. You don't know anything for certain unless you give it a try."

"And while you're changing my feelings…what about yours?"

"My feelings for you are strong. They wouldn't change."

"Then I think that your feelings are a lot like mine."

"That isn't what I meant. I'm not going to fall out of love with you. You'd be falling in love with me, and that's a _good_ thing, Sonomi. Wouldn't you be happy if you were in love?" She slid her hand out of his, shaking her head.

"I _am_ happy. I have Tomoyo and all the friends she brings over, in words or in person. I have my business, which keeps me entertained. And if fast-talking, back-stabbing, hostile takeovers and all the other fun stuff gets too stressful, I have the toys and the little kids there to play with and I can _still_ call it work because it's "Market Research." I have my friends who make me smile even when I don't want to. I don't need to be in love to make things better. I'm happy with my life. I like things as they are. I like you as you are."

"I could be more."

"You could be anything. You can try to change how I feel. But not everything will go your way, and I don't want what we _do_ have to suffer for it. You can do anything you like, Sensei. But please don't try to change me, my feelings. If changes happen, they happen, but I don't want them to be pushed or pulled or brought along. I don't want to feel like I have to feel something _now_ that might come more naturally later. Or something that just won't. I don't feel the way you do, it's that simple." She moved around him, walking away. 

"Sonomi, I _love_ you."

"And I love you, Fujitaka-sensei. Just not in the way you want." She turned at the elevator, watching him while she waited. "It's almost. It's nearly. I'm asking you to let it be close enough." 

"I'm not going to give up on you." 

Her lips twitched into an odd half-smile. "I didn't think you were going to listen to me when I came here."

"Then why did you?" He stayed where he was, watching her get on the elevator, watching the doors shut with her answer.

"I had to try."


End file.
